My relatives might as well be pairs of Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons -- strangers at the door -- for all they have to do with me. They ring my bell, as it were, several times a year, only to press my arm into a spiritual blood pressure cuff of their own devising: Am I saved or, as they suspect, not?

The big, scary thing about the National Defense Authorization Act -- the thing that summons irrationality from the pit of our collective paranoia -- is the provision that would expand the "war on terror," at presidential discretion, to the whole world.

The core teachings of all great religions is the middle path, drawing us to humility and telling us that what matters most is not how well we follow any specific doctrine or scripture but how we treat each other.